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The dream finally dies: SEGA kills PSO2 English website
- Thread starter Deleted member 1378
- Start date
MMOs are expensive. You have to keep a localization team staffed at all times since the English version would always be behind the Japanese version in content and story. You'd have to run servers, pay a customer support team, sort out payment solutions, etc. It's much more expensive than just putting out an RPG. They probably just didn't think they'd make their money back, or they weren't sure it was worth the risk. It's hard to really blame them. Especially when a lot of the really dedicated community was already playing the Japanese version.
It's not hard to get the English patch and play it. That being said it only kept me going for a few days. Everything seems like a chore to do in that game, the menus are a mess and the combat is just not very fun. Does'nt touch PSO not even for nostalgia sake.
Yep.
Between that and Nova being passed over, I really have no confidence in Phantasy's prospects in the west. Sad, too, since the original PSO and Phantasy Star Portable scratched itches that I likely won't quite get ever again.
The sad thing is that I'm pretty sure the original pso was far more popular in america than japan. I'm not saying it would have been a colossal hit but I'm sure they would have at least made money over here. People were very legit hyped when this was originally announced.
Finally gone, got oddly nostalgic when whenever PSO popped into my mind and I would visit the site. Wonder if anyone archived it.
I wish someone would ask Sega exactly WTF happened with the release of this title over here. No beating around the bush or accepting the spoonfed answers. Outside of the licensing issues, I just can't understand why it never released. Some of my all-time favorite gaming moments were on PSO and I still keep in contact with some folks I met on there.
It kills me to say it but Sega's been dead for a long time.
For me anyway they were so fucking amazing in the 32bit era,love my Saturn to death. To see what they are today though is so disturbing. I'm at the point now where I just wish one of the hardware makers would buy them up and return them to being proper again.
Maybe we need to get Jason on this, but ultimately I think it came down to business reasons and that they thought there wouldn't be a market for it westward. I will say that their communication with this game was strange as they could've killed the goose a long time ago and straight up told people it wasn't happening. I think if Phantasy Star Online 2 came around today they would've been much more likely to have localized it due to the current climate being more GAAS and long tail focused. PSO2 was announced at a time when SEGA was not as localization friendly as they are today.
Yep, any of the intense atmosphere and uniqueness from PSO1 is replaced with otaku anime doll weird creepy stuff in PSO2. People really aren't missing out. Maybe years of content have improved it, but the base game was just bad. The PSP titles were honestly better.
PSO Blue Burst remake with VR mode. Just seal up my door.
It was probably a combination of expense to localize every piece of content in the game and to maintain the game with timely updates. Easy enough to do in their home territory, not so much for sega at least to do so in multiple western territories. They've been notoriously god awful at it with past PSO games. As for licensing issues, they would only need to omit the collab stuff from the international versions, unless they damn near decided to weave it into story arcs themselves. Its a shame though. I found that PSO 2 performed great online even when connecting from the opposite side of the world, comparing to the god awful lag fest of PSU
It's honestly embarrassing that they didn't bring this over. Sega has no idea what they're doing.
Despite popular opinion, MMORPGs are costly to maintain, a localization would require a lot of upkeep. It would need its own community managers and such. It's more than just translating a bunch of strings. Sega obviously thought it wouldn't be profitable to run an English version of the game.
Yep and not to mention the localized version was really bad. So giving us SEA's version as placement of the localization would be awful in every way.
tbh same. It was fun but a very disappointing follow up from the original game. The social features were very nice though
